contamination
the act of contaminating, or of making something impure or unsuitable by contact with something unclean, bad, etc.
the act of contaminating, or of rendering something harmful or unusable by the addition of radioactive material: the contamination of food following a nuclear attack.
the state of being contaminated: The manufacturer recalled the product because of possible salmonella contamination.
Rare. something that contaminates a place or substance, as by making it impure, unsuitable, harmful, or unusable; a contaminant.
Linguistics.
an alternation in a linguistic form due to the influence of a related form, as the replacement in English of earlier femelle with female through the influence of male.
the process of forming blends.: Compare blend (def. 9).
Origin of contamination
1Other words from contamination
- non·con·tam·i·na·tion, noun
- re·con·tam·i·na·tion, noun
- self-con·tam·i·na·tion, noun
Words Nearby contamination
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use contamination in a sentence
Similar contamination problems occurred after the Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, and in Paradise after the Camp Fire, as E&E News Reports.
California wildfires may give way to massive mudslides | Ula Chrobak | September 17, 2020 | Popular-ScienceSan Diego sued the energy company in 2007, claiming the city should recoup over $100 million in damages for the gas contamination.
Pursuing Independent Water Sources, San Diego Ignores One Beneath Its Feet | MacKenzie Elmer | September 14, 2020 | Voice of San DiegoThey expected to see roughly 232 of these recoils, caused by known sources of background contamination.
Dark Matter Experiment Finds Unexplained Signal | Natalie Wolchover | June 17, 2020 | Quanta MagazineMore mundanely, the signal could come from contamination inside the experiment.
Dark Matter Experiment Finds Unexplained Signal | Natalie Wolchover | June 17, 2020 | Quanta MagazineSrubar’s group worked in a lab where contamination is easy to avoid.
This ‘living’ concrete slurps up a greenhouse gas | Carolyn Wilke | May 6, 2020 | Science News For Students
Shoddy well construction is considered a primary cause of groundwater contamination at drilling sites.
Two Texas Regulators Tried to Enforce the Rules. They Were Fired. | David Hasemyer, InsideClimate News | December 9, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe fact that the first true contamination happened in the controlled environment of a hospital will do little to calm nerves.
Ebola Contracted in Madrid Hospital Could Spread in Europe | Barbie Latza Nadeau | October 7, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThere is one theory that they were both exposed by a Liberian worker in the contamination crew who fell ill.
‘He Could Have Brought Ebola Here’: Minnesota Widow on Her Husband | Michael Daly | July 30, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThere has been a lot of concern about contamination of the evidence at the site.
MH17 Is the World’s First Open-Source Air Crash Investigation | Clive Irving | July 22, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTCould modern human DNA contamination affect the resultant radiocarbon date?
Incontrovertible Evidence Proves the First Americans Came From Asia | Doug Peacock | March 27, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThere's no need for you to suffer any further contamination by mingling with such persons as are yonder.
Dorothy at Skyrie | Evelyn RaymondTaboos of first chapter indicate that in the early ages the fear of contamination by woman predominated.
Taboo and Genetics | Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary BlanchardNorden, therefore, seems to go too far in giving this as an example of contamination of poetic by rhetoric.
Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance | Donald Lemen ClarkHis face was greenish from the effects of the special, contamination resistant mixture that they were breathing.
The Marooner | Charles A. StearnsLikewise, if the persons who do the milking are not clean, the milk is subject to contamination from this source.
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 2 | Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
British Dictionary definitions for contamination
/ (kənˌtæmɪˈneɪʃən) /
the act or process of contaminating or the state of being contaminated
something that contaminates
linguistics the process by which one word or phrase is altered because of mistaken associations with another word or phrase; for example, the substitution of irregardless for regardless by association with such words as irrespective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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